Karma's Happenstance

Room 108

Room 108

Mary Josephine Levi's POV

This is my wedding day.
This should be the happiest day in every woman’s life. The that you get all beautiful and marry the man you love. But yet I’m sitting in the Sunday school room of our church. My feet are tapping nervously and the collar of this wedding dress my mother picked out is wedding closing around my throat like a hangman’s noose. Sweat is pouring from every pore of my body and I’m close to panicking. A need to get up and run screaming plagues me.

My mother pours a ton of hairspray on my hairdo and I’m thankful for the dizziness that comes with the lack of air. She keeps going on and on that this is the way it's done. This is how our lord planned it. She tells me she felt the same on her wedding day. She said it wasn't so bad and she didn't regret having me for an instant.

But I’m about to be married to a man almost forty years older than me. And I'm to be his fifth or sixth wife. I don’t even know his other wives. I don't want to know them. I don't want to know him. I don't want to let a man I don't even know to take me against my will. Nor am I ready for the children I am expected to soon make.

All I know is that I wish to cry out from the top of my lungs “No, I don’t want to marry him!”

But I don’t say a word. This is not how I was raised. I was raised to submit. I was raised that multiple wives were normal. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some naïve sissy hillbilly virgin from a lunatic religious cult or something. Okay, so maybe I am from a lunatic religious cult but I’m neither a virgin, nor a hillbilly. That’s the point.

I left this place and these people. I wanted to break free and make something of myself. But now I was being drawn from a normal life with college and normal friends. I’m being forced back into this nightmare that used to be my reality for years. I thought I had finally escaped it and now I’m right back here. Right back in hell.

I keep sitting still, my hands clinging the piece of paper in my lap. These are my vows. Not that I mean them. How could I mean such loving flowery words to a man I didn't love. A man old enough to be my father. Hell, I didn’t even write them. I couldn't even begin to. Just as everything else they are just forced on me. I want none of this.

While my mother keeps fumbling my hair, I force myself to be still. Trapped inside the real me screams: RUN! But I wait for my impending doom. Pretending to be the perfect daughter and soon to be the perfect wife. I have to. These things are expected of me. I know if I refuse my family will hunt me to the ends of the earth. My father has promised me to this man.

I keep staring at the front desk. The receptionist ignores us. I wonder if that guy could help me to get away but I guess he’s paid to just let us sit here. But god how I wish he could see this disdain in my eyes. I wish he understood what was about to happen to me. But he doesn't. This is just a basic wedding party. I'm sure he had seen hundreds here. How could he know the truth?

A guy walks in and my eyes shoot up to catch his appearance. He’s skinny with jet black hair that crops under his chin and cascades down his back. He dressed all in black, and wearing a cap and sunglasses. He might be a musician because he sets aside something that looks like a guitar case. I’m not sure why I bother to look at him, but he’s so different from the people around here, I just can’t look away.

His angular jaw can be seen tensing. But his face seems quite relaxed. His stride seems to be in no hurry at all. When he walks his eyes fall to the ground. He looks tired. Like he has traveled a long way to be here. Though for the life of me I can't imagine why. No one comes to this place for a reason. I can't help but wonder what brings him here. He’s so different from the people around here, I can’t look away.